


Tension and Repose

by lizzilou



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yoga, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension, yoga teacher hanzo shimada
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-08 03:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19862659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzilou/pseuds/lizzilou
Summary: Jesse certainly considers himself up for the challenge of any of the classes on offer at the gym. He fights, he runs, he can (more or less) keep up with Fareeha’s workouts. Hell, he’s still alive and kicking after all the field time he’s clocked- what’s a spin class when last week he was extracting assets from behind the fireline in Beirut?This bravado is precisely how he finds himself at the mercy of one Shimada Hanzo, yoga instructor.





	1. Bakasana

Jesse learned fitness from supersoldiers. There had been dim-lit, musty basement gyms in his days as an underfed gang runner, but Jack and Gabe's insistence on shit like schedules and regimens and macronutrients made whatever he'd done before look like a flea circus. With a little tutelage, he learned well how to make a body hardy and useful, and while his self-destructive tendency has kept them from being a favorite pastime, his workouts have kept him as strong and as quick as survival requires.

On Tuesday, Genji and Lucio had goaded him into deviating from his usual schedule to join them on the climbing wall. The wall- well, _walls_ \- took up a fairly large portion of the facility, but aside from fulfilling training requirements, Jesse hadn’t spent much time on them. Standing beneath Genji and watching him scamper up vertical, then suspended horizontal surfaces had Jesse ruminating on all the reasons why. 

Actually attempting the course himself was humbling.

“It’s not that you don’t have enough power,” Lucio had mused from the top of the bouldering wall, infuriatingly relaxed after having scampered up the course with remarkable ease. Between Genji on the ground and Lucio above, Jesse had so much coaching that he was beginning to resent the running commentary. “And you’re quick in the ring. Not afraid to fall...I think it’s your flexibility.” 

Jesse missed the Hail-Mary hold he’d leapt for, and found himself on the plastic of the mat for the third time in the last several minutes. He groaned and rolled; he had taken the blunted hit largely in the shoulder, and sat for a moment to catch his breath before the next attempt. “I'm plenty flexible,” he rumbled, rolling his tender shoulder out.

Genji managed not to laugh at him, but only just. “How much stretching are you doing?”

“I stretch!” 

“I don’t know why I asked. I’ve seen you stretch. It takes you 90 seconds, tops.” 

Heaving himself back onto the wall didn’t slow Genji’s train of thought down like he’d hoped, because he had his mouth open for another comment when Lucio chimed in from above. 

“Why don’t you come to a yoga class with me sometime? I think there’s a beginner class that- oh,  _ nice _ ! Now just- that blue round one above your right shoulder-” 

Jesse scowled at the feeling of being bulky and graceless, mashed up against the wall and trying to wedge himself between whatever dinky little globular pieces of rubber he could find. The strength of his prosthesis was only useful if it could actually get a grip on the holds, and the one he hung off now was a nearly-flat, hexagonal little asshole. “Don’ need a beginner class,” he grunted, talking directly into the wall. He paused, chest heaving, hoping to get some inspiration on how to get a grip on the next hold with a few toes and his leg at a 110’ angle from his hips. “Required for spec ops CQC. I- _hah_ \- I got the basics.”

Genji droned a long, skeptical vowel. “Go back down a few and come at it from another angle. Even  _ your  _ wingspan can’t reach that. And we both know those reqs were bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with starting at the beginning. Anyway, I know who teaches the advanced courses: he will  _ destroy _ you.”

“I ain’ so easy to destroy, Genj.” Jesse had scoffed, swung for the impossible toe-hold anyway, and found himself with his back on the mat again for his trouble, struggling to catch the breath that he lost with impact. “Fuckin’...goddamnit.”

As he rolls over and waves Genji onto the wall in surrender, a quiet huff of laughter from above him cements his resolve. 

"Yoga, huh?"

Genji just shakes his head. “Next advanced class is 4p on Thursday. It was nice knowing you, McCree.”

-

The familiar background gymnastic noise of weights clinking and aimless top 40s hits fades as soon as he enters the studio. It is a generous space, with two walls of mirrors that collide into a curved wall of windows, all overlooking a few grey blocky buildings, and, distantly, the Strait. 

He remembers from his last and only yoga experience that the instructor had played soothing piano music as students trickled in and set up. At the time, it had reminded him of church services as a boy: the flock filing in as the piano played, a preacher flitting about with greetings and check-ins. Jesse tries to settle into the thin mat beneath him, tries to put the memory of hard pews out of mind.

There is no music in this class. The only concession to ambiance is the waft of a solitary stick of incense that suffuses the air with smoky benzoin. It fits with the atmosphere outside, where a light rain in early summer has the humid air smelling of ozone, and cloudbreak is just beginning to admit cautious rays of sun back into the afternoon.

The instructor had not been immediately obvious among the gathered people. When he comes to greet him, Jesse realizes that he’d seen but not expected this guy to be a yoga teacher. This was no lithe, perky 20-something in chakra-blazoned tanktop . Hanzo is  _ stacked _ , with expansive shoulders beneath his snug tee, his face and body perfect enough to be a model and his expression severe enough to dispel the notion as soon as he has it. His welcome is brisk, tone polite but aloof as he asks about injuries and ensures Jesse consents to physical posture adjustments during the class, and then he’s off. Jesse watches Hanzo take a seat on his own blue mat at the front of the class, and without another word, the class begins. 

“Sukhasana.”

His attention wanders as they are lead through a benign series of neck and shoulder stretches, and thinks immediately that he was right about the rigor of yoga. He acknowledges that Genji and Lucio had a point- the stretches do feel damn good, enough that he can concede that he should have been doing something more like this all along...but this doesn’t constitute a 'workout' for him. 

At least he came to the upper-level class. Jesse is just as fit as the other folks here, and once he gets stretched out, he’s sure he’ll be able to keep up with a few planks and down dogs. 

And he can’t help but be pleased to have the opportunity to keep his eyes on this teacher for the better part of an hour. Even if he doesn’t find himself in love with yoga, he cannot deny the view is fine: Hanzo’s tee pulls taut across his generous pecs, especially when he moves his arms behind his back like that. As they all rise from their mats, he finds himself lightly entranced by the way the band of his shorts clings to the barrel of his full thighs.

Not a bad way to spend an hour at all.

“-start with surya namaskara A to build heat. Five breaths per pose in the first round to ensure adequate technique. Following that, we will speed up to one breath per pose. Now…”

Jesse follows along easily enough despite his poor grasp of Sanskrit, reaching high and bending low, plank then pushup then downward-facing dog. His movements stutter a little as he adjusts to the rhythm, but he picks it up quickly. As Hanzo begins wandering the room, leading their movements with his even, staccato baritone, Jesse can’t help but feel like the man is glaring at him. He feels his attention like heat, like a sniper's laser, and despite the discomfort he sets his jaw and keeps at it.

With several more minutes of rapid-fire sun salutations under his belt, Jesse finds himself breathing a little harder, beginning to work up a sweat. He isn’t alone. Most of the students are lightly panting. Hanzo is not moved. “We begin surya namaskara B. Mountain pose.” 

Jesse knows what the basic poses are from memory, but it is obvious that he is far out of practice. The teacher hovers while he talks the class through the initial round of postures. 

“Tadasana is not just  _ standing upright _ . Great toes together, heels apart. Thighs turn inward,” he commands from right behind Jesse. His tone is a little meaner than he really expected from a yoga teacher. 

Louder, for the whole class, he continues: “Utkatasana.”

Jesse is only a heartbeat behind when he sees his neighbor sink into a chair squat. Judging by the disappointed little exhale nearby, his form is incorrect. Dutifully, albeit with a tiny smile of his own, he makes all the suggested adjustments he is able- and there are plenty of them. 

“Tuck your tailbone. Thighs parallel to the floor.  _ Lower. _ ”

They stay in chair pose far longer than the span of five breaths as Hanzo ruthlessly adjusts his posture, both physically and audibly. He is more like a drill sergeant than any yoga teacher Jesse has ever heard of...but it isn't  _ bad _ , exactly. Perhaps it’s the years of combat training, or perhaps he's just a little wrongheaded, but the threat of Hanzo's ire is an invigorating motivator. 

Eventually his instructor hums, though it sounds more disgusted than satisfied. 

“Uttanasana.”

He follows the others into a forward fold, and doesn’t manage to be nearly as folded as his neighbor. Insistent hands on his hip and spine correct his posture with brisk force, and Jesse can do little but let Hanzo push the stretch mercilessly deeper. He exhales carefully to avoid an awkward groan at such a deep stretch, and Hanzo moves on without a word.

The class only intensifies from there. They travel through twists and holds and inversions that make muscles he didn’t know he had quake with exhaustion. Jesse is forced to admit to himself, some 20 minutes in and having to retreat to child’s pose for the third time, that the advanced class is perhaps not  _ completely _ appropriate for him, not the way this guy teaches it. Hanzo gives no quarter, rapid and unrelenting with his adjustments in whatever pose Jesse is willing to try. Stubborn mule that he is, even if Jesse can’t hope to actually attain most of the poses, he makes an attempt at all of them.

He manages to land crow pose for several seconds, having some muscle memory of it from his previous brush with yoga. A smile breaks out at the thought that he’s actually managed to keep up for once. Not that the teacher sees- Jesse’s attempt to survey the room lands him back on his ass, and from there he watches his limber teacher lift effortlessly from crow pose to handstand with the filtered sunlight through the windows at his back.

He swallows past a dry mouth.

There is not so much as a wobble of unsteadiness in those powerful shoulders. He seems to truly push the ground away, muscles bunching in his lower back and ass to steady him over powerful arms. His shirt has ridden up on his stomach a little, and in order to keep from completely embarrassing himself in class, Jesse forces his gaze to keep moving, to take in the look of calm concentration on Hanzo's face- and then the way he looks right at him.

He continues whatever it was he was saying to the other student, and Jesse, now paying better attention, picks up on it. “When you have the strength in your upper back and shoulders for handstand, the transition from bakasana and back becomes a matter of balance and alignment.” As he speaks, Hanzo reverses his motion back down into crow, and then, again, presses up to a gorgeous handstand. “Engage your lower back and psoas muscles, pull the femoral heads inward, and stack the pelvis.”

Jesse tries to recover by quickly arranging himself into another attempt at crow pose. He’s never been able to play the dutiful student role well, though, and turns his head just slightly so he can watch the way Hanzo deftly pikes his legs down and rolls to a stand.

And comes right to Jesse next. 

"Downward-facing dog."

Jesse, startled, falls out of crow pose and onto his ass. At the regally expectant look on Hanzo’s face, however, he hefts himself back up into downward dog as commanded. The instructor paces behind him, corrects his hips, presses a thick-fingered hand between his shoulder blades so that his back straightens. A small  _ hmph _ signifies that Jesse's posture has improved satisfactorily. 

“Bend at your forearms- only slightly. You do not yet have the balance for bakasana to handstand, so you will learn to float from adho mukha svanasana to bakasana." 

Jesse lifts his head to argue, a snarl twisting his lips, but he finds Hanzo already bending before him. His righteous anger at the insult takes a momentary backseat to awe of this man's unparalleled control over his body. He licks his lips silently as he watches Hanzo assume downward dog, and then jump his knees onto the backs of his upper arms. _Float_ , indeed. He rolled back to a stand, plum staining his cheeks from the rush of being upside-down.

"Your turn. Push off with your feet and support the weight with your hands. Keep your hips higher! Balance requires strength! Bend the knees, look up- look up! And land in crow. Heels in!”

His firm, warm hands follow him as he moves, making tweaks and adjustments, never lenient. Jesse feels the rasp of calluses on his bare shoulders and bites the inside of his cheek as his hips are pushed higher to where his instructor wants them.

“You will do this motion back and forth to prepare for crow to handstand. Now, reverse back to downward dog. Don't fall,  _ float.  _ Use your core! Back  _ flat _ . Shoulders in, thighs in.” 

The stream of orders rolls in like a thunderhead above Jesse’s panting breaths and pounding heart. His forearms are on fire, and a fine tremor has made a home in the muscles of his shoulders. Hanzo's hands stay with him despite the fury of his tone, guiding him in and out of the two poses.

“Again.”

Jesse thinks he can hear the ghost of a smug smile in Hanzo’s goading, but his balance wouldn’t survive the look up to confirm it. He’s not a small man, and fitting his knees- and all his weight- onto the backs of his brawny arms takes significant concentration. 

"Elbows in. Toes together." A bead of sweat rolls oddly up his face, from his jaw to his temple. Jesse's shoulders are beginning to fatigue from holding the inversion for so long.

" _Again_."

His voice cracks like a whip. Jesse has just enough air to huff a groan and not enough spare attention to stop himself. He makes it through five rounds of this achingly slow back-and-forth motion under the heatlamp of Hanzo’s rigorous eye before finally his teacher hums a rumbling, almost-pleased sound just above his ear that sets off a quiver in the jelly that used to be his spine.

“Perhaps you are teachable after all.”

Jesse grunts his surrender and collapses into a sloppy child’s pose, chest heaving. The quiet tap of Hanzo’s feet moves away across the hardwood.

Despite how wrecked he already feels, they are far from finished. As long as Jesse is out of child’s pose, the teacher is nearby. His attention is merciless, methodically working Jesse into stretches and twists that lead cleverly into still more wild contortions. By shavasana, he melts into the thin mat as though it were a plush mattress, feels his muscles and ligaments melt away from his bones, and finally feels his breathing slow down. His senses once again register the scent of incense and the sweat cooling quickly on his wrung-out body. 

Relief and laxity cools in his joints, and the giddiness of having accomplished something new and challenging begins to take exhaustion's place. Not only did yoga kick his ass, he thinks he may have just _enjoyed_ it.

As Jesse rolls up his mat to leave, he expects the strict teacher to descend on him and administer a thorough dressing-down for wasting his time attending a class he was vastly underprepared for. He figures it’s nothing less than he deserves, and he's still planning on being pissed about someone taking that tone with him, but it doesn’t come. Hanzo is distracted in the opposite corner, speaking in an amused, familiar undertone with one of the very proficient female students, and suddenly sheepish with his self-absorption, Jesse withdraws for a well-deserved shower. 

If his arrogance deserves a reprimand, it will have to wait for next week.


	2. Chakrasana

Even beneath the generous shade of the patio umbrella, it is hot. The sprawl of concrete and asphalt surrounding their preferred lunch spot in town only heightens the feeling of being baked alive. This particular cafe- Satya’s choice- has been generously landscaped to give the illusion of sitting in a garden screened by trees. It is pricey, but the combination of shade trees, a lovely spread of light fare and the occasional caress of a cool breeze makes the expense worthwhile.

A lull in the lunchtime conversation has Hanzo glancing down at his comm through his sunglasses, tabbing idly through notifications: a few news items, an unanswered text from his brother, and a new addition to the roster for his advanced yoga class tomorrow. That last sharpens his focus: ‘Jesse M.’ had also appeared on the roster for his last class, the one which had been...disrupted. It hadn’t been the first time a novice had mistakenly attended the class, but he had never had such a person  _ repeat _ that mistake.

He sighs softly at the thought of navigating how to  _ politely _ tell this man that he is too much a disruption to continue attending. 

Across the table from him, Satya takes the last sip of her drink, something redolent of flowers and jewel-red, and sits back in her chair. Her unoccupied attention quickly picks up on Hanzo’s hesitance. “Has something happened?”

He puts the comm back on the table, face down, lips just slightly pursed in regret of being caught out. “Do you recall the man who accidentally came to the advanced class last week? The one who I kept having to adjust.”

From the faraway look on her face, it takes a moment to jog this memory. “Yes…’ _ adjust?’  _ I remember you punishing him into exhaustion. You have a unique style, but I was surprised even you would be so hard on a new student. Wait-” Her lips curl into a wry smile. “Have you been reported for your ‘unwelcoming attitude’ again?”

Hanzo purses his lips at the reminder, and takes his time to assemble a morsel of sliced apple and mellow cheese from the picked-through spread still on the table. “...No. Perhaps the opposite problem.”

He eats while she parses his turn of phrase; it doesn’t take her long. “He signed up again? Oh my. He must be a bit of a masochist _. _ ” She hums; “He should fit right in, then.”

He tsks. “The class isn’t appropriate for him. He thinks he can muscle his way through. Keeping him from injuring himself distracts too much of my attention from the rest of the class,” he says, ignoring her taunting. “I will have to email him when we return.”

“Hanzo, the rest of the class does not require much help, by your own admission last week.”

She gives him a calculating look. Hanzo keeps his chin lifted, makes plain his moue of disapproval at the entire situation. Satya clinks the ice in her now empty cup, and he sees her gaze travel predatorily toward the remainder of Hanzo’s basil lemonade. The merciless heat has condensation dripping in heavy beads down the side and pooling on the ceramic tiled tabletop. 

“The class is tomorrow,” she says, matter-of-fact, “you should call him.”

He exhales soundlessly. She is right, but rather than say the words aloud he rises to refill her drink for her. 

—

The call picks up a brisk two rings in, but Hanzo is surprised to hear a voice far too youthful and articulate to belong to the middle-aged man he was looking for. 

“You have reached the Special Activities Division, Jordan speaking. How may I assist you?”

_ Special Activities?  _ His voice doesn’t betray his surprise, but it is written on his face. “My name is Shimada Hanzo. I am trying to reach Jesse regarding a course he has scheduled with me for tomorrow.”

“I see, thank you. One moment please.”

Special Activities is the source of his handful of fieldwork assignments since beginning his affiliation with Overwatch. There are only a few divisions currently operational in the Recall, which has only just grown large enough to require divisions, and even then, Spec Acts is quite small. Accidentally reaching out to a fellow agent is unusual, but then, Hanzo has not had cause to become familiar with any coworkers beyond his handler and Genji. He had asked for solo missions only, having little to no experience with wetwork in groups, and he had gotten them. 

The onboarding process had been short, even taking in mind the shoestring budget Overwatch ran on. His resume and a brief demonstration for the brass had been sufficient to get him started on the few stealth recon field assignments he’d received thus far, although he has a strong suspicion that his brother had made some key recommendations. Hanzo glances around the teacher’s lounge as he searches his memory. Maybe he had heard of someone named Jesse since he’d arrived here, but he certainly couldn’t recall it now.

“I’m sorry, the person you are trying to reach is not available. Is there a message I can relay?”

He thinks again of how the last class went, and in the split moment it takes for him to decide a course of action, the memory that surfaces is the way Jesse corrected so well under his hands, reshaping his posture like a sculpture moving into place at an artist’s suggestion.

“Yes...if you would, confirm with him that he is still scheduled for the advanced yoga course tomorrow at 7am.”

“Of course, Agent-consul Shimada. Good day.”

The line clicks as the telephone on the opposite end is promptly racked. Hanzo frowns down at his comm. How many people in this division have a secretary taking their calls? He shakes his head minutely to clear it, notes the time, and gathers his things to prepare for his evening class.

—

The following morning is relatively cool after a night of summer storms. Fog lingers low over the cooled ground, thick clouds maintaining a grey morning twilight throughout Hanzo’s pre-class workout in the studio. By the time he has worked up a sweat and sits to light the mossy incense he prefers, the world has begun to brighten slightly. The fog will likely be gone before class is done. 

He takes a few minutes of meditation before the first students arrive. Last night the storms rolling through had made him energized and restless, as they always had. As he’d laid in bed idling on his comm, sipping his way through a dwindling supply of sake and hoping sleep would eventually come, he had pulled up the chain of command documents he’d received during onboarding. The thought resurfaces now, and he sits a little straighter. Hanzo tries to focus past the name nearly at the top- Jesse  _ McCree _ . Commander McCree is Jesse M, his new student. He can’t help his curiosity; when he considers what he expected of Blackwatch’s top brass, this man with his dogged persistence and coyote smile isn’t it. Has he joined the class to keep tabs on his taciturn new agent? Is this a test? Perhaps he should have been more respectful, but though the man had bristled, he had obeyed. The way he’d let himself be moved and shaped by Hanzo’s hands...

_ No _ . He will admit no distractions. Jesse McCree is, in this room, only a student. If the pupil’s inexperience is a disruption, the fault lies only with his insufficient skill as a teacher. 

Teaching yoga to Overwatch may be only a hobby, but it is not within him to do anything by halves. And if this is a test, he will exceed expectations. 

— 

The class begins unremarkably: he puts the students through surya namaskara A and B as ever, pushes them until there are red cheeks and the room fills with warmth and light panting breaths. He pads around the perimeter of the class as they move, on the lookout for corrections to make, but he has taught well, and they need little additional guidance here in the formulaic opening poses. 

Despite himself, he is drawn magnetically to McCree. His eyes are closed and his hair falls in his eyes already, and Hanzo warms as he watches his spine roll through cat and cow pose, the way he can see the relief and relaxation written across his face. 

He must resist getting too absorbed, and sets his focus on a miniscule adjustment in one of the regulars instead.

Some minutes later, crescent lunge is the first pose that requires him to find his way to McCree for correction. He finds the man in runner’s compression leggings and a muscle tank, doing his best to mimic the posture of a woman near him. He is clearly trying hard, from the stress in his back leg, the shoulders by his ears, the sideways lurch of his hips. 

Hanzo pitches his voice low in an attempt not to disturb the flow of the class. “Slide your shoulderblades down your back,” he says, voice still a little sharp, hands demonstrating with light pressure on the planes of his shoulders. “Chin up. Press your heel toward the back of the room. Lower!  _ Hinge _ at the hip, do not twist.”

He lifts his hands but stays nearby, lets Jesse waver and then settle into his new center of gravity. 

“Now, bend backward, arms up, and push your chest forward.”

McCree is stunning. Most of his pupils are small and lithe, and their forms have all the lovely grace of ballet- but he is larger, muscular, and his forms, when hit, have a lingering wildness in them that is all his own. A flush draws his eye down the pebbled line of soft lips and bristling chin, down over his heaving chest. Hanzo averts his gaze when he finds himself staring and continues his rounds. 

He takes them through a demanding backbend sequence; downward dog into warrior poses, chaturanga into a lingering upward facing dog that has Hanzo taking his time to correct each student into perfection. Locust pose moves into the first of some challenge and a personal favorite of his: dhanurasana. 

Hanzo is proud; his students, taken as a whole, are doing well. He looks over the class with a critical but satisfied eye...until he spies McCree. 

“出る釘は打たれる...” he muses  _ sotto voce,  _ and can’t quite help a small smile.  _ The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.  _

He hears McCree wheeze as he approaches. The student is contorted in a way that the others are not, creating stress rather than harnessing it. “Do you know what dhanurasana translates as?” 

He places his hands lightly on straining biceps to relax them, and answers his own question before Jesse’s grumbling resolves into the rude response he no doubt wants to give. “ _ Bow pose _ . Your arms are meant to be the string that is pulled between and connects the torso with the legs.” 

The student relaxes a little, but seems unsure. “Let the natural tension of the pose hold itself, and allow relaxation elsewhere. Engage your back and thighs.” His hands move to Jesse’s neck once his arms have relaxed. “Keep your neck straight, not hyperextended. Balance on the space between the bottom of the rib cage and the top of the pelvis.”

Hanzo can watch each set of muscles jump to work as he names them. McCree is still working harder than he should, wobbling but nearly there; he holds the man’s upper arms a moment to steady him, then stands back. It will take time to feel out the proper balance. “More practice,” he prescribes. 

And moves on. 

They cycle through a few chaturanga, and he brings them back- and further back- to camel pose, where those already familiar have knelt and leaned far back enough to grab their heels in their hands.

Hanzo takes care to adjust everyone else first, guidance rolling off his tongue in measured, familiar cadence. “Lift the points of the hips. Engage the muscles of your chest. Press the ground away with the shins.”

McCree is unsurprisingly not quite in the pose, still working his way into it as his back stretches and allows it. His head is thrown back like a stallion, and the long, thick curve of his neck is art in the shy blue-cast light of morning. Hanzo watches for a few breaths’ span until the moment passes, and then, too paralyzed by the awareness of his fascination to offer assistance, turns from him and guides them all into chakrasana.

The transition itself is the difficult part, as it so often is with advanced practice. Hanzo stops by his own mat at the front of the room to demonstrate visually. He does his best to talk through the movements. 

“The pose begins knelt. The spine is long, bend through the upper body as the lower engages. Tailbone down, hips up; the front thighs oppose. Press down through the shins as you come to rest in camel pose. Keep your chest out. Engage your core as you slowly take the weight from your hands- and then-“ He huffs- it is difficult to talk while clenching his abs just so- “and lift the hands- to the chest, then reaching overhead-“

There is a heavy cough, and he has to hope no one has done something injurious while he is in the middle of this. His hands find the floor from the depths of the backbend, finally. “And push up with the legs from the floor into wheel pose. Here, keep your neck relaxed, your knees pulled inward and your back engaged. Once past the transition, we will practice a few variations today.” 

Hanzo shifts his weight and pulls one leg skyward, at a 90 degree angle from his body, to demonstrate. “One-legged wheel, for strength.”

He brings his foot back to the floor before walking them out so that he is in an arching, flipped push-up position. “Straight-legged wheel, for stretching, and…” his voice is hoarse from the strain of speaking while contorted, so he hopes his students can hear him.

He pulls himself back into the previous position, moves further until his shoulders hover directly over his hands, and then lifts himself softly into a handstand. “And the transition to adho mukha vrksasana, for balance.”

Gravity takes his feet lightly to the floor, and for all his bulk, there is only the soft scrape of his prosthetics on the wood as he lands. “Any questions?”

Jesse groans. There are some quiet scattered chuckles at the newbie’s despair, but at the thunderous look from their teacher at such a disruption, the students all bend quickly to their work. 

Hanzo moves first to McCree, who will break his back trying things beyond his skill if not watched carefully, and kneels next to him as he tries again to reach his shins with his hands in camel pose. 

“You will skip the transition, and approach Chakrasana the traditional way. Lay on your back.”

“Wha- naw, I think I can almos—“

It is some of the most Hanzo has heard the man speak in class, but he cuts him off quickly. His voice is ungentle and urgent. “You are not remotely ready, and I will not allow you to harm yourself in my class. There are other poses to conquer first. Lay on your back.”

McCree’s expression shifts from obstinacy to something that Hanzo can’t quite place. Not cowed, not quite  _ impressed _ ...oh. It is something he recognizes from a completely inappropriate context, he suddenly realizes, and then abruptly shuts down that line of thought out of respect to his student. His mind now firmly turned to a mental recitation of the steps involved in disassembling and reassembling the Storm Bow, Hanzo patiently guides him into a first try at the wheel pose. 

“Once you get your balance, shift more weight into your hands and try to lift one leg for the first variation.”

McCree, as ever, is eager to try and surprisingly competent, but Hanzo finds himself still alarmingly distracted by the man. So as his pupil gets his bearings with this new contortion, Hanzo tears himself away. 

If he spends the rest of the class adjusting and guiding the others in a more brusque, distant way than usual, no one mentions it.

— 

McCree finds him when class ends- Satya is apparently no longer interested in sheltering him in her conversation. Hanzo speaks before the dewy, glowing smile on the other man’s face can make a distracted fool of him. “I admit, I am impressed that you returned to my class this morning.”

And abruptly regrets those words, because is that any way to speak to a commander of his division? It is long past time to regain his grip on his self-control.

The other man’s smile grows sheepish, and the arm not hefting a rolled mat spreads in surrender. “If we’re making confessions, I originally signed up for the advanced class because I thought I had this whole thing figured out.” Jesse laughs self-consciously. “I guess I’m feeling a little humbled.”

“I...see.” Hanzo lifts his chin, his gaze appraising. “And now that you are relieved of your misconceptions, do you intend to continue your practice?”

McCree scrapes at his beard as he watches Hanzo, brown eyes hidden in a squint that makes him seem suddenly distant. He knows he is being sized up, and for a moment he is sure his arrogance has pushed the man’s patience too far. But McCree doesn’t seem to take his words as the insult that he could have. “Yeah...yeah, I do.”

Though this only adds to Hanzo’s problems, the tension breaks like a soap bubble. He nods sharply, approving, and a smirking smile breaks anew on Jesse’s face. 

“Very well. However,” he starts, and already seeing McCree’s brow curl inward and his mouth open to argue, Hanzo holds up his hand. The other students have left by now, so he does not need to keep his voice so low, and speaks quickly to head off a rebuttal. “ _ However _ , you cannot continue in the advanced class. You have not mastered the basic poses, and the time I require to teach you takes time from the other students. Your determination is admirable, and you learn quickly, but it is not enough to make up the years these others have put in to be here.”

“But...in the spirit of honesty, I am impressed with your- your eagerness and tenacity. I will teach you, if you would like.” 

McCree’s brows perk with surprise, and again he rushes to press the advantage of surprise. “Twice a week, and you will practice between sessions. I will not go easy on you. If you are not interested, I understand. I can give you the information for the beginner course.”

The return of his smile was slow but steady, growing as Hanzo spoke until it was so warm as to be hard to look at directly. Jesse shifted his weight to one side, looked down a moment as though he was giving it some real thought- as though that ruddy smile hadn’t already given his answer away. “Well, can’t say I was expecting that. I, ah...I’d be honored. What times are you free?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Genji: _so how are yoga classes going_  
>  H: Well  
> Genji: _meet any new people lately_  
>  Genji: _break*_  
>  H: Genji  
> H: that was one time

**Author's Note:**

> well, friends, this is my first ever fic. yikes yikes yikes... as such any critiques, encouragement or comments you have are extra super appreciated while i try to figure out my style and git gud.
> 
> the intention is that this will develop into smut in a few chapters, so ratings will change when necessary.
> 
> this piece was inspired by tweet(s) from @motorghoost and @robo-cryptid ( [link](https://twitter.com/DesLaMoto/status/1112184323317395456) ) and if you'd like, you can follow me twitter at [@playtheserpent](https://twitter.com/playtheserpent)


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